


Festival

by SpaceAsthmatic



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Cute, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Festival, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Goodbyes, Hurt/Comfort, Male Friendship, No Character Death, Old Age, Valinor, aman - Freeform, just mentions of it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-17
Updated: 2018-11-22
Packaged: 2019-08-24 18:39:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16645688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceAsthmatic/pseuds/SpaceAsthmatic
Summary: Time passes much more quickly for Elves than for mortals, and sensing that his dear friend's life is approaching its end Legolas is reluctant to part from him. Even to attend a festival and see Gandalf's fireworks., and Gimli is having none of it. (Gimli doesn't die I promise.)





	1. Chapter 1

He looked down the lane where Elrond and his family -blood or otherwise -  stood waiting for him and then back to Gimli who was sitting contentedly with his pipe on a well-padded bench, “Are you certain you will not come with us?” His old friend stared at him with deeply knowing eyes. “Come with me.” Legolas amended. 

 

“Yes, I am certain.” The walk to the market was not a long one for elves but it was for an elderly dwarf, even if both Elrond and Legolas had offered a cart of some sort to help transport him. “You will be fine without me.” 

 

Legolas was not convinced. 

 

Since he had come to Aman he had most of his time on Elrond and Celebrians land, exploring the woods and coast and anything else that fancied him only immediately surrounded his new home. His soul still felt raw and tender, like a partially and badly healed wound, and being too far away from his safe haven made him uneasy. 

 

“You must get used to me not being-” 

 

“Stop it.” 

 

The words hung in the air unspoken anyways:  _ Used to me not being around anymore.  _

 

Gimli was trying to slowly help Legolas adjust to that very thought, to the thought of the final member of the fellowship to pass on and leave him alone. Elrond and Celebrian were trying to help as well, but Legolas was so stubborn. 

 

If he did not want to learn and adjust, then he wouldn't. 

 

Gimli sighed with sympathy “Legolas-”

 

“Not today, alright?”

 

Gimli heard the small tremble in his voice and took one of Legolas’ hands between his own, patting it affectionately, “Now don’t you go and start crying now, because then Lady Celebrian will as well and you will never get to go and see the festival.” 

 

This poor thing had been through so much pain already, his heart so haunted with too much love given and lost. Legolas took a deep breath and looked up to the clouds, gripping Gimli’s hand tightly. “Go on lad, you don’t want to miss Gandalf's fireworks, do you?” 

 

“There will be other times to see them.” 

 

The elf had gotten like this near the end of Aragorn's life too, to reluctant to be parted from his side, for anything. Gimli didn’t feel much older than last year, or the year before, but Legolas had grown more attached if possible. Perhaps the elf sensed something he himself did not yet. 

 

“Now you are just being ridiculous. You can survive one single night without me, I assure you. I will still be here when you get back. As cranky as always but ready to listen to every detail.” 

Slowly his grip eased on the dwarf's hand, “Do you promise?” 

 

Even if Mandow wanted to take him tonight, he would just have to wait until Legolas came back. There would be no leaving without a goodbye. He wouldn’t do that to the dearest creature in his life, he couldn’t do that. 

 

He already knew what he would say to Legolas on his final night. He had been planning it for years; it had to be good enough to still bring the poor elf a measure of comfort thousands of years from now. 

 

Because Legolas wound never forget him, and thus never truly forget the pain in his heart. 

 

“Yes. I promise.” 

 

Legolas wasn’t ready for him to leave, and if Gimli had it his way, he never would leave. But he would, he had no choice,  and they both knew that. 

 

He had written over forty letters for Elrond to give to Legolas whenever he thought it necessary, each also containing a little gift as well. He planned to write more letters, he would write hundreds if Mandos granted him the time. 

 

He gave Legolas’ hand another pat, “Now go on. Have fun, and tell me all about it when you get back.” 

 

Celebrian began making her way back up the walkway, while the others continued to wait patiently at the end. They were so good to him, and it continued to ease Gimli’s heart that others seemed to see the same fundamental goodness within Legolas that he did, and loved him accordingly. 

 

“Everything alright up here?” She asked casually, voice a soft as the setting sun. 

 

Legolas answered: “No.” 

 

The same time Gimli said: “Yes.” 

 

Reaching out Celebrain began to rub a soothing hand up and down Legolas’ back, sensing trouble Elrond took a few steps back towards the house, waiting for the signal for his wife. “Alright, what would you like to do about it?” 

 

Gimli had loved Celebrian since the day he met her. Loved the way she interacted with Legolas, never questioning his moods or his sadness. Never belittling or ordering. Only care and compassion. If he wasn’t okay, she intended to help him find a solution. 

 

“I want to go to the festival.” 

 

Gimli smiled pridefully, “There's a good lad.” 

 

“You’ll be here? When I get back?” 

 

“I will fistfight Mandos myself if I must.”

 

“Alright.” 

 

Together Legolas and Celebrain went back down the walkway and joined the rest of the family and began making their way towards the city and the night festival. Both twins made a good effort of distracting Legolas as they wandered, but Gimli still counted eight times that Legolas looked back to make sure he was still there. 

 

Just in case. 

 

It broke his heart. 

 

Gimli never thought that the biggest concern of his natural death would be the effect of somebody else. But it was potentially the deepest fear that hat ever touched his heart. 

 

He waited unitl the elves had walked out of view, and then another twenty minutes just to be sure before he got up from his plush perch with a groan. Slowly he made his way through the hallways and into the garden, passing by the Legolas’ favirote tree, smiling when it dropped a few flowers peddles on him as he past. He carefully plucked a weed ready to seed as he left the garden and made his slow and aching way down the stairs to the sandy beach below. 

 

There was still several burnt logs from a fire Legolas and the twins had had a few nights previous. 

 

He started out across the darkening waters, the endless expanse that separated these undying lands from the mortal one’s he had grown up on. He brought the weed up near his face and inspected it, watching as one little seed caught a daft of wind and blew itself into the oncoming darkness. 

 

Legolas did this, not often but not infrequently, whenever he missed his father too much. Apparently, the used to do this in Greenwood to pass messages in the garden, when Thranduil was first teaching his son how to connect more fully with the nature around him. 

 

He didn’t know if it worked for Legolas, maybe Yavana made it work, and he doubted it would work for him, but it was worth a shot. 

 

“You need to come now, Thranduil. I am holding on as long as I can, but your son needs you. Please hear him.” 

 

Closing his eyes he blew the seeds, wishing with every fiber that the seeds would hear and relay his words even if they were given verbally and not through a bond like with the elves. He watched as they drifted away, not into the sea but up, up, up in the air until it vanished. 

 

Then, he began making his way back to the house to await Legolas’ return.  


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!   
> This is a warning that I've continued the story until Gimli's death.   
> So you're going to see that.   
> Can't wait to hear your thoughts, I cried writing this so hopefully you cry reading it.

Gimli had always been told that death crept up on you the same way a hunting cat would, leaving you unaware of what was happening until the sudden end. That he would not know it was his time to die until after he was already dead.    
  
But dwarves had never spent time with an elf, and had never seen several hunting cats attempt and fail to stalk its Leith pray. There was no sneaking past Legolas, not even for death.    
  
The elf was already there with him already when he awoke in the middle of the night, sleeping fitfully on the bed next to him. The elf had taken to sleeping in his room, and his bed, three months ago.    
  
Legolas always tried to defend that it was in case he should need anything, at any time. That this way he would not have to put unneeded effort into simple tasks. Gimli knew it was because Legolas had heard the first snapping twigs in the forest as death stalked closer.    
  
But now it seemed to pace at his door. Impatient. Determined. Waiting.    
  
For him.    
  
Gimli looked to Legolas’ peaceful face and actually contemplated not waking him. To let him keep this moment of peace before he woke in the morning to find Gimli empty, void of the soul and heart the elf loved so much. Before the shards of his heart that they had spent the last century painstakingly pasting back together again shattered to the floor.    
  
He could already hear the wail of despair his best friend would make when he died, for it would be the same or very similar to the one that rocked Gondor after Aragorn passed. It seemed he could always hear that broken cry for help, any sort of help, at all times of the day.    
  
Aragorn's death had not brought him as much sorrow as that cry had.    
  
But he could never leave without saying goodbye. He would never,    
  
Legolas would never forgive him.    
  
He had tried to plan what he would say to him on this night. His final night. He had written it and rewritten it countless times but now it didn’t seem good enough. Nothing could possibly be good enough.    
  
As if death turned the handle on his door, Legolas’ eyes snapped into focus.    
  
He didn’t know how much time he had left. “You know you are the greatest person or thing to ever happen to my life, right?”    
  
Those impossibly deep blue eyes were already swimming with tears and Legolas scrambled upright to closer to the head of the bed, tucking his knee’s under them. As youthful and swift as the day Gimli had met him. “Yes.”    
  
The word was in Elvish, but Gimli knew what it meant. Both the word itself and that the reason it was in elvish was that whenever he was severely overwhelmed Legolas often forgot he knew Westeron or that he should be using it.    
  
“I’m sorry how much knowing me is going to hurt you.” He was the one dying and yet Legolas seemed to be the one unable to draw breath, “And I know that means I should probably regret this friendship, and all our travels, and coming here with you.”  He reached an old, aching, and wrinkled hand to Legolas’ chest and patted as you would on a baby, “Breath lad.”    
  
Brokenly, somehow, Legolas managed a breath, his hands clutching at the dwarves hand over his heart. Gimli could feel the impossibly fast heart rate and the slight tremble, it felt as though he could feel Legolas’ heartbreaking all over again.    
  
How many times could something so precious be put back together again?    
  
“Please do not say that you do.” To his credit, most of the words were in westeron this time.    
  
Turning he hand in Legolas’ grip he laced his finger with the much smaller ones, ignoring how they trembled. “No. I could never. I can hardly remember a time in my life that I did not know your smile now, and I do not care because I’m certain you are the best elf Eru could ever have had a hand in creating.”   
  
“Thank you,” Legolas whispered, unable to get his voice to be any louder, “For letting me be your friend. For being my best friend, and for coming here and-”    
  
But his voice was stolen from him and so Gimli filled the silence, “It was my greatest honor.”    
  
Legolas managed to get closer and scrunched lower, “Mine too.”    
  
Foolish of him to think he needed to practice a speech for Legolas to know what he wanted to say. Foolish of him not to remember that even when he could not speak Legolas understood.    
  
Death swirled in from the sitting room, creeping its talons and its cold into his bedroom and Legolas began trembling even more.    
  
“I love you, you flightly insufferable elf.”    
  
“I love you, you impossibly stubborn dwarf.”     
  
Death stood beside the bed. Not cold anymore.    
  
“You be good.”    
  
And just like that, Death was gone with its new friend.    
  
“I miss you.”    
  
Nobody was there to tell if he spoke in elvish or westeron.    
  
Suddenly, violently, Legolas ripped himself from the bed. Tripping over himself or the carpet he crashed to the floor, too stunned and overwhelmed to keep his hands and cheek scraping badly across the cold ground.    
  
He tried to stand, to run, to get away from the empty shell where his best friends used to be. From this room that reminded him so much of everything, he had just lost.    
  
But his legs could not hold him, and his arms were shaking too badly to allow him to crawl.    
  
He didn’t know his mouth even managed this last desperate screech for help until long after this day, “Ada!”    
  


 

**………………………………………000000000000000………………………...**   
  
“Ada!”    
  
Elrond was up and out of bed in not even a second and racing for the door before his brain bothered to acknowledge that it was Legolas’ and not one of his own children. Thankfully, his children never had a cause to call for him in such a heart-wrenching manner.    
  
He was closer to Gimli’s room than Thranduil, but if he was calling for his father and not for him it was not a healer that was needed.    
  
That did not motivate him, or Celebrian, any less.    
  
They raced from their room and into the hallway, Celebrian needed to brace herself against the far way to keep herself from crashing into it their momentum was so great.    
  
Elrond reached the door to Gimli’s room a second before her and thrust it open, spotting Legolas wretching on the ground halfway through the doorway to the bedroom. Elrond did not need to check to know there was only three, and not four, souls in the room.    
  
Legolas didn’t need to say anything for them to know what he needed.    
  
Without hesitation Elrond scooped the heartbroken thing into his arms, ignoring and unbothered that some of Legolas’ sick had gotten onto his arm. Celebrian held the door open as Elrond half sprinted back into the hallway, as Legolas shook and sobbed violently in his arms.    
  
One step ahead of him, Celebrian raced down the hall towards the nearest exit and held that door open as well, Elrond spilled into the night air and set Legolas on the grass. Celebrian abandoned her post and threw herself in the grass as well, cradling Legolas’ head in her arms.    
  
The door had not even latched closed yet when it burst open again and Thranduil joined Celebrian in the grass. Legolas dislodged himself from Celebrians arms and into his fathers just as quickly as Thranduil had arrived.    
  
Thranduil crushed Legolas to him as his sobs seemed to turn into wails of despair,“I’m so sorry, my poor little leaf. I’m so sorry.”     
  



End file.
